Redfish action is hot when weather turns cool

While live shrimp, or jigs tipped with Gulp! tails, are the most common bait offered to shallow-water redfish schools, Blain Talasek used a topwater plug to draw a strike from this Matagorda Bay red.

While live shrimp, or jigs tipped with Gulp! tails, are the most common bait offered to shallow-water redfish schools, Blain Talasek used a topwater plug to draw a strike from this Matagorda Bay red.

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A tern tries to pluck an easy meal from the shrimp, crabs and small fish scattered by a school of redfish foraging in the shallows of a back-back flat in West Matagorda Bay. Hovering gulls and terns often can point anglers to the location of these shallow-water packs of reds. Houston Chronicle photo by Shannon Tompkins

A tern tries to pluck an easy meal from the shrimp, crabs and small fish scattered by a school of redfish foraging in the shallows of a back-back flat in West Matagorda Bay. Hovering gulls and terns often can

A pair of terns wheeled and pitched over a patch of nervous water tight against the oystergrass lining the bank of the back-bay flat off West Matagorda Bay, triggering a nod from Mark Talasek as he arced his boat's path to swing wide of the disturbance.

"There's a good bunch," Talasek said over the whine of the outboard jacked as high as it could go and still keep the prop in water. "They're moving down the bank. We'll try to get ahead of 'em."

The boat bumped bottom as soon as it came off plane - not surprising considering the water was barely a foot deep, if that. But with some slick maneuvering and a little legs-over-the-side pushing - some of the skills the 43-year-old Talasek has developed over a lifetime of fishing the Matagorda Bay complex - he had the boat positioned almost within casting distance of the bank.

Up the shoreline, the patch of ruffled water bird-dogged by the terns moved closer, and we could see the perhaps two-dozen dark forms causing the disturbance. Occasionally, a thick, bronze back or a blue-tinged tail would rise above the surface as the fish rooted and poked and prodded along the oyster-littered bottom.

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As the school moved, creatures scattered ahead of them. White shrimp popped from the water and skittered along the surface, dodging the reds below and terns overhead. Small crabs and mullet and bay anchovies and killifish and all manner of tasty delicacies scuttled and streaked.

Regularly, the water surged and swirled as a red claimed a meal.

We watched them approach, the scene lit by golden light of a clear, cool November late-afternoon, and nervously held rods, waiting for the fish to draw within casting range.

It would be nice to say we plundered that school of reds. But we didn't. A combination of operator errors on the anglers' part followed by the school quietly drifting apart left us unfulfilled.

That lasted about 5 minutes, until the school reformed and we were able to put lures in their midst, resulting in almost instant hook-ups.

It was the first of several shallow-water schools of reds Talasek found that afternoon earlier this month. And it was not an aberration.

"Redfishing has been just spectacular," Talasek said Friday, after another successful day of putting clients within casting range of visible schools of feeding reds. "It's been a great fall for redfish. We've been able to find shallow-water fish almost every day."

Finding and targeting schools of redfish as they feed in water so shallow the fish are either visible beneath the surface or, commonly, as their tails, backs and heads break the surface is one of the most engaging and exciting ways to take these copper/bronze drum.

Satisfying cravings

While stalking shallow "herds' of reds is certainly possible other times of the year, it's most enjoyable and arguably more predictable and productive this time of year.

As autumn takes hold, a couple of things trigger increased redfish activity in the shallows, especially in back-bay "lakes" and along some bay shorelines.

Cooling water temperatures make the shallows more comfortable for the cold-blooded reds, encouraging them to forage in the thinner water.

But food's what really draws them.

"The fish we're catching are just stuffed," Talasek said. "Their bellies are packed full of shrimp, crabs and lots of little mullet."

Through summer, the year's crop of white shrimp, crabs, mullet, killifish and other forage species have used estuaries as their larder and refuge, hiding and feeding in the vegetation and other cover afforded by the marshy environment.

As autumn arrives, forage species move out of those protected areas, a transition triggered by biological imperative (migration of juvenile white shrimp to the Gulf) or a combination of falling water levels in those estuaries (low tides caused by north winds behind cold fronts) that forces animals from the marshes.

Flushed from the protection of the marshes and into open water, the crustaceans and forage fish are exposed to predation. Redfish know it. Those reds, like their prey, sense winter is coming and take every opportunity to gorge and build fat reserves for the coming tough times.

Schools of reds will gather and move almost like a herd of grazing bison, rooting and poking and pouncing on prey. While schools do work open, deeper water, they often move very shallow, paralleling a shoreline and using the land as a kind of blocking force that limits the escape routes of their quarry.

While it's possible during autumn to find packs of reds hunting in shallow water under many weather, tide and water conditions, some days offer better odds than others.

"I like a calm, cool or mild day and a falling tide," Talasek said.

The reasons are simple. Calm conditions make it easier to spot the telltale signs of shallow-water reds - the "nervous" water they create with their wakes, the tails and backs and heads that break the surface and even the splashes the fish make as they pounce on prey.

Cautious scheme

A falling tide flushes shrimp, crabs and small fish from the marshes and into more open water, where they are more easily found.

"When you have a high tide, it spreads everything out," Talasek explained. "Falling tides and low tides concentrate the fish."

Back-bay lakes and extensive flats rimmed by marsh are the places to find the schools but certainly not the easiest places for anglers to access. And that difficulty limits fishing pressure; only boats able to navigate in inches of water - airboat, kayaks, shallow-draft bay boats rigged with jack plates to raise outboards high enough to allow running with just the prop and cooling-water pickup in the water - are able to access most of the premier areas.

Even when sighted, a school of shallow-water reds are not a sure thing. The fish typically are extremely spooky - they are as exposed and vulnerable to predators as their prey. Anglers who press too close to a school or bang around in the boat and otherwise create noise that travels easily in water can trigger a heart-sinking scattering of the school.

In most cases, anglers' best tactic is to gauge a school's direction of movement, carefully and stealthily take up an ambush position down the shoreline and wait for the fish to move within casting range.

What to throw at them?

Just about anything. A jig trimmed with a soft-plastic shrimp/eel body probably is the most commonly used artificial lure. But topwater plugs also work well and usually can be cast farther, and the ability to make long casts can be crucial when sniping at a visible school of redfish.

If you want almost guaranteed action, go natural or close to it.

"You really can't beat a live shrimp under a popping cork," Talasek said. "If you don't have live shrimp, rig a Gulp! (scent-infused, soft-bodied lure) on a light jig head under popping cork."

Prolonged activity

The autumn shallow-water redfish action in the Matagorda Bay system likely will continue for at least another month or so.

"Until it gets really cold, they'll stay around," Talasek said. "They'll drop off into the channels when we get a strong cold front, but they'll ease back onto the flats when it warms up.